Do your fisheys sleep?

I think it is so funny how all my fish sleep in their same spot every night. My clarkii clowns even goes into his cave and lies down on the sand. My tangs also go to the SAME spot EVERY night and go to sleep... do yours? Just kinda interesting that they know that, that is their cave and no one else can come near them. My yellow tang and clakii clown and yellow tang actually share a cave. The clarkii has the front of the cave and the yellow tang has the back. Do yours do the same or are mine just the strange ones out of the bunch (wouldn't be surprized)!

 

Mine usually head to the same place every night

 

my melanurus wrasse has his own little rock he sleeps under every night in the sand!

 

haha. I've never really notice. I only have one fish & just recently re-aquascaped.

That would makes sense though, as fish are territorial. They each have their own nitch. Similar to the way a bird knows where it's nest is & it also goes to the same nest each time.

 

The melanarus wrasse I have buries himself in the sand. My mandarin dragonette turns pale and sits motionless on the substrate in nearly the same spot every night; I hear they make a poisonous mucous coating to protect themselves. The canary blenny suctions himself to a corner of the tank, behind the magfloat, and turns nearly white. The purple tang moves into the rockwork, but is still very reactive to a flashlight or my hand if I stick it in the tank. He has a few areas he sticks to at night. The clowns just host closer to the torch coral than they do during the day, literally swimming while touching it, constantly. Finally, the banggai cardinal will go out on the prowl in the water column, something they don't really do during the day.

My point is that some fish sleep, and some don't (the banggai is a nocturnal predator; that's why they have gigantic eyes, and can catch anything in the water column after dark with ease). Some have obvious territory (the blenny, clowns and dragonette), and some don't (the tang).

 

I re-aquascaped a little while back, after I had to dismantle 2/3 of my rock work to get at a hitchhiker crab. Prior to that, my 6" long blue tang would hide in the same spot every night. There was an opening in my rock work barely bigger than him. The funny thing was that its tail would stick out every night as well. He's not the best hider.

Since I rearranged my rock, he's found a spot where he completely vanishes now.

My chromis are probably the coolest fish for hiding at night. They split up and hide in any small crevice they can find. Some even sleep vertically in the top corners of my tank.

 

My clown sits on the glass in a corner and sleeps facing down at he ground. My puffers curls up in the sand, usually in the cave, and turns black and sleeps.

All animals have some sort of rest, but most fish don't have REM sleep which means they can't dream. This is the most important stage of sleep and all animals we consider intelligent have it. Puffers are one of the few exceptions. They are very intelligent and do have REM.

 

So neat to here everybodys storys!!

 

bump! Lets hear more stories!

 

Haha very cool thread. I love looking in my tank after the lights are out. My clown lays down on top of a powerhead.. Literally lays down. I thought she was dead the first time I saw it haha. My yellow watchman has its own little cave, hes super protective of it. He's built up sand all in it, and if anything gets close to it, he gets angry haha. I watched a snail get close to the cave opening yesterday, he picked it up in his mouth and swam to the other side of the tank and spit it out. Then darted back to the cave lol.